Including medication safety as a course in undergrad nursing and its aspects around enhancing patient safety

2^nd Advanced Nursing Science & Practice

April 20-21, 2018 | Las Vegas, USA

Umesh Joshi

University of Sunshine Coast, Australia

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Adv Practice Nurs

Abstract :

Australian government spends $660 million per annum on medication errors and its repercussions. Medication safety is taught as part of the undergraduate nursing course but not the course itself. Also, students are not exposed to the order entry system which is a standard operating system used in hospitals these days. Being new to the system and spending more time with patients in comparison to doctors, fresh nursing graduates may commit medical errors in patient care. This is a qualitative literature review wherein peer reviewed articles are critically evaluated with emphasis on different aspects of medication safety in nursing curriculum looked into. Based upon read literature, some recommendations are made about inclusion of these aspects as topics within the undergraduate nursing syllabus. These aspects include enhancing nursing student�s medication calculation knowledge, direct supervision while medication administration, information technology integration into curriculum and integrating patient safety into health professional�s curricula. Implication of these aspects in the clinical settings have been proven effective in improving the patient safety and thus are required to be a part of a nursing course. Research articles enumerating effects of including patient safety as a core curriculum has been used to strengthen the notion of this review and further recommendations. omijoshi88@gmail.com